What happens when you find an iPhone 4?

My dad found an iPhone 4 at his job and took out the sim card. The iPhone is not password proteted so i clicked on the "set to factory settings" option to wipe it out but… I did this like 3 days ago and it still has a loading circle in the center of the screen, i don't think it takes this long to wipe out a iPhone. Is it possible the iPhone was reported stolen and deactivated?

Hopefully it was,
finding a phone isn't like finding a fifty dollar bill where there's no way to find out who owned it.
people say their morally against stealing, but a lot of people aren't, they just don't steal because they can't 100% get away with it.
yea, most people that find cell phones don't return them, but that's no excuse.
if you want to steal, steal from a heartless corporation,
not from a fellow brother/human.
sigh…
:S
depressing.